


two saints or priests or nuns

by sapphyshipseverything



Series: body & soul [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1930s good old fashioned pining, Dancing, M/M, Period appropriate internalised homophobia, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, based off the poem 'how my true love and i lay without touching' by leland bardwell, steve is 20 and bucky is 21 in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 08:30:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15190847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphyshipseverything/pseuds/sapphyshipseverything
Summary: "How my true love and I lay without touching/How my hand journeyed to the drumlin of his hip/my pelvis aching/Just like two saints or priests or nuns/my true love and I lay without touching."-Leland Bardwell, How my true love and I lay without touchingSteve knows that if he were a dame, he certainly wouldn’t be picking himself as a dance partner, not if Bucky Barnes was around.





	two saints or priests or nuns

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, I'm back, and this time it's Steve's turn to pine after Bucky. Someone tell these two they're in love with each other. 
> 
> The poem in question for this work can be found here ( https://sashayed.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/how-my-true-love-and-i-lay-without-touching/ ) again, not required reading, but its so good you should anyway
> 
> thanks again to Ligia, my partner in crime when it comes to all things stucky <3

Steve doesn’t know why he let Bucky convince him to come out dancing.

Steve’s shirt is sticking to him uncomfortably across his shoulder blades, and his drink has almost been knocked out of his hand six times by couples on their way to the dance floor, which is frustrating as hell because Steve has to make it last the whole night. One of the perks of being dirt poor. At least the drink stains might hide some of the sweat stains, Steve thinks darkly.

The band is playing some sort of jitterbug, the music fast and frenetic. Watching the crowd makes Steve’s head spin with how much they move, a swirling mass of people. Everyone is trying to outdo each other, the guys pulling the girls in ridiculous lifts, with some dames returning the favour and lifting their partners clear over their heads.

He’s too tired for this, especially when he has work in the morning, but he promised Bucky that he’d try to enjoy himself. Steve’s never been good at denying Bucky what he wants. At least he can stay at the bar for a while now, nursing his drink. He needed a break from the dance floor. Even if not very many dames want to dance with him, plenty want to dance with Bucky, and sometimes he pawns one of them off on Steve while he goes to get a drink or take a leak or catch his breath. The promise of Bucky coming back eventually meant most dolls dance with him for a bit, at least until Steve stands on their feet one too many times or Bucky comes back. Steve is so used to the rejection that it barely stings anymore.

Bucky was always doing that, trying to set Steve up with someone. Steve doesn’t know why he bothers, the girls weren’t exactly lining up to dance with a guy who’s only taller than them when they’re not wearing their dancing heels. It’s not even like Steve enjoys dancing. He feels too clunky and awkward, especially trying to dance with a dame who doesn’t give a damn about dancing with him, and his back aches if he’s on his feet too long.

Maybe Bucky feels guilty dragging Steve out with him just to watch how many dames he can get. He shouldn’t. Steve knows that if he were a dame, he certainly wouldn’t be picking himself as a dance partner, not if Bucky Barnes was around.

Hell, if he’s honest, even though he ain’t a dame (despite how small he looks) he’d still choose Bucky as a dance partner. Bucky’s always been movie-star handsome, but when he dances, it’s like he becomes a part of the music – every head in the damn joint turns to look at him, he’s just that mesmerising. Steve could spend all night watching him dance, the ease with which he moves his body, how he gets lost in the music; the sight makes his hands ache for his battered old sketchbook. Steve watches him now; how he twirls and lifts the pretty little blonde he’s dancing with so easily, her dress swirling about her legs and Bucky’s hair damp across his forehead where his hair oil can’t quite keep it tamed back. Bucky’s good at making even the worst of dancers look graceful in his arms, but with a girl who does know how to dance he’s like magic. Steve thinks he could learn to like dancing if someone could make him look like that.

Steve knows the things he thinks about Bucky sometimes ain’t right. It’s wrong to imagine what his best friend’s arms would feel like on his waist, what it would be like for Bucky to look at him the way he looks at his dance partners, what it would feel like if his soft lips were pressed against Steve’s cheek, whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

He knows it’s wrong, but it doesn’t stop him doing it, though he does pray for forgiveness from God about it every night. It’s not fair to think about Bucky that way, not when he got beat up a couple months back defending Steve against those guys who took one look at him and called him a fairy. It’s not fair that Steve thinks he might be a fairy, not when people just assume it of him anyway because of how he looks. Steve likes dames well enough, but they don’t like him. Bucky’s the only person who’s ever paid Steve any mind.

This place is bumming Steve out. He’s not sure how much longer he can stick this, watching Bucky dance with girls, his head thrown back in laughter at something his date has said. Steve glances at his watch, downs what little is left of his drink, and decides to high-tail it out of the bar before he makes a bad decision and gets into a fight just to distract himself.

*

It seems like it takes an eternity for Steve to walk back to his and Bucky’s apartment, his heels blistered from where his worn-out shoes don’t fit him right. He feels filthy, and tired, and all Steve wants to do is get some sleep. He heads to Bucky and his bedroom and sits on the edge of his creaky twin bed.

As he loosens his tie and steps out of his shoes, he hears the front door open. It must be Bucky and his date. Dot, he thinks her name is. She’s a pretty girl, just turned eighteen, and sweet too. She hadn’t even turned her nose up at Steve when she met him for the first time, despite him obviously not living up to whatever Bucky had said about him, just shook his hand politely while snuggling in closer to Bucky’s side. They make quite the pair, him dark and tall, and her blonde and petite. Steve hopes they stay out in the main room long enough for him to at least get under the covers and pretend to be asleep. He doesn’t know if he can take having to listen to whatever _good times_ they get up to, but his back definitely can’t take a night on the sofa.

Steve hates feeling jealous. It’s an ugly emotion, and one he doesn’t have the right to feel, especially not against a dame as nice as Dot. Bucky is the best guy Steve knows, so kind and sweet and charming and _good_. He deserves to find a nice girl, to settle down and have a big church wedding and 2.5 kids and a house with a picket fence and a happy ending. He doesn’t deserve their crummy apartment or a back-breaking job at the docks he hates to support them both because Steve’s always sick, and he doesn’t deserve an invert for a roommate.

He’s just hung up his shirt and is about to slide off his pants when he hears the creak of the bedroom door opening. When he turns around though, it’s only Bucky that comes through, his jacket slung over one shoulder and his shirt half undone. He smiles at Steve, a soft and familiar thing, and Steve feels his stomach swoop.

“Steve! Steeeeeve! There you are!” says Bucky, laughing as he makes his way across the room to stand beside his own bed. He flings his jacket down on the covers, the fabric landing in a crumpled heap. “Why’d ya leave like that Steve? I scoured the whole place for you before the bartender told me you’d left. I thought you’d gotten yourself into trouble.”

From the light of Steve’s bedside lamp, he can see the blush on Bucky’s cheeks, a few too many whiskeys to blame, Steve is sure.  His friend’s movements are clumsy, his hand fumbling to undo the last few buttons on his shirt and tug it off. He sighs, and gets up to fold Bucky’s jacket, because he knows how creased it’ll be in the morning if he leaves it like that, and Steve doesn’t feel like ironing unless it’s unavoidable.

“It was getting pretty late, I thought you wouldn’t want me to cramp your style the whole night.” Steve shakes out Bucky’s jacket and tries to smooth out the worst of the wrinkles with his hands as he steps to their closet to grab a hanger to hang it up. “You oughta take better care of this, Buck, just because we’re broke don’t mean we have to look it.”

Bucky scoffs, his chin resting on his closed fist as he sits and watches Steve fuss over his clothes, as if the idea of Steve being a hindrance is ridiculous. He shrugs off his shirt, leaving just his undershirt and suspenders, and hands the shirt to Steve to hang up. Bucky ignores Steve’s bait to change the topic. “Dot was just gonna grab you a dance partner pal, before you took off, her friend’s real nice-”

“ Forget about it, Buck, I don’t think she’d have wanted to dance with me anyways.” Steve laughs, but the sound comes out bitter and hollow.

“Why not? I promise I only told her the good stuff.”

Steve can’t handle the earnest expression on Bucky’s face, so he looks at his feet instead.

“Women don’t wanna dance with a guy they might step on, Buck.” he murmurs, hoping that Bucky will just drop this whole thing and let them both go to bed.

Bucky’s quiet for a long moment, his face blank of any expression, his face frozen in place long enough that Steve thinks his tactic might have worked.

And then he’s standing up, striding across their small little room in one confident step to stand in front of Steve. His hands are gentle where he places them on Steve’s shoulders, and he waits to speak until Steve meets him in the eye again.

“You- you don’t really think that, do you, Stevie?” his expression is unreadable, and Steve finds he can’t speak past the lump in his throat, so he just shrugs instead of answering.

Bucky seems shocked by that, his gaze roaming over Steve’s face, searching for the answer to a question that Steve’s not sure he knows. Bucky seems to find what he’s looking for anyway, and he takes a deep breath in.

“Who cares about them, then? Dance with me.”

“Huh?”

Steve can’t’ve heard him right; his stupid ears must be playing up again because he could have sworn Bucky just said-

“Dance with me.”

Steve feels like his heart might beat out of his chest, it’s hammering away that fast. He tries to keep the panic he feels on the inside out of his voice.

“What’re you on about Buck? It’s nearly two in the morning-”

Bucky runs his hands down Steve’s arms until their hands are clasped together, and pulls, until Steve goes stumbling after him and they’re standing in the centre of the room, arms outstretched. Bucky shakes their arms up and down.

“Come on, Stevie, dance with me. You know I ain’t likely to step on you- hell, the whole of Brooklyn would hear you holler about it if I did.”

He’s got one of those hundred-watt grins on his face, one of those ones he uses to charm people into getting what he wants. It’s working on Steve: there’s nothing he wants to do more than dance, but he feels this is a bad idea- one of them is gonna get hurt from this, he’s sure.

“We don’t have any music.” Steve laughs, and starts trying to shake his arms in time with Bucky, until they’re sweeping big, goofy arcs between them.

“So we’ll make some, come on, daaaance.” Bucky starts crooning one of the songs from the dance hall, his voice deep and loud and terrible.

“You’re drunk, Buck.”

“So what if I am? Don’t mean I can’t dance with you.”

He lets go of one of Steve’s hands and places it on Steve’s waist. “You alright with being the gal in this situation, dollface? It ain’t like you’re good at leading anyhow, and one of us should know what they’re doing.”

Steve thinks he ought to protest a little at that comment, but he doesn’t want to scare Bucky out of whatever strange mood has brought this on. He places his arm around Bucky’s shoulders. “Screw you, jerk.”

Bucky laughs, his head thrown back, as he starts to move his feet a little, slow at first to let Steve get into step with him. “You’d never mistake you for a blushing babe, you punk.”

Steve shivers at the way he can feel Bucky’s laugh where his arm makes contact with his shoulder. He can’t let himself go down that line of thinking, getting all soft (or rather…not soft) on Bucky. He tries to concentrate on following the easy way Bucky moves his feet, his joints fluid and loose. He can’t quite help looking down at his feet while he does it, concentrating on getting the steps just right.

Bucky hooks a finger under his chin. “Eyes up here, mister. You’re thinkin’ too damn much.”

As if to demonstrate, he purposefully lets his steps get sloppier, shaking his hips a little and kicking his feet out in a way that would look goofy if anyone else did it. “There’s no one here but me to see ya, Stevie.”

 _That’s exactly why I’m so nervous, Buck_ , Steve thinks, but he makes himself kick his leg out to the side in an exaggerated imitation of the way he’s seen the girls do it at bars.

“That’s it, you’re getting it now! We’ll make a lindy hopper out of you yet!”

Bucky pushes them both so that Steve’s twirling around them, and he has to catch both of Bucky’s hands to keep from falling. Steve can’t help the giddy feeling in his chest from spilling over, like bubbles out of a bottle of champagne, and he tries not to worry about getting the cork back in after this is all over and just enjoy himself. Every nerve ending in Steve’s body is humming with…something, a sensation he can’t describe.

He’s not sure how long they dance like that, although dance is maybe a loose definition of whatever it is they’re doing, but he knows that when they finally slow down a little Steve’s cheeks are blazing warm and Bucky’s breath is coming in ragged pants. Somehow, they’ve switched places, and Steve’s hand is resting on the waistband of Bucky’s slacks, curled loosely around his hip, while Bucky has his arms around Steve’s neck. Steve knows he’s got a dumb, fond look on his face that he can’t seem to wipe off, he knows because Bucky’s wearing one too.

They don’t say anything to each other. Steve watches the way Bucky bites his lip, worrying it under his teeth as they finally come to a stop. He leans down to rest his forehead against Steve’s shoulder, stooping a little.

“S’nice,” Bucky says, voice a little slurred from the alcohol and the exertion. “Best dance I’ve had in a long time, Stevie.”

“Same here, pal.” Steve’s surprised to find he means it. His heart hurts with the effort of keeping how he feels inside. He’d barely have to turn his head to lean down and give Bucky a kiss; he can see the soft shadow his eyelashes cast on his cheeks from here. It’s all he can do to keep himself from saying,  _Guess we both just needed to find the right partner._

 Steve rests his chin on the top of Bucky’s head. “Whadda you say we catch some shut-eye now, wise-guy. We both got work in the morning.”

Bucky gives an affirmative hum and lets himself be led to lie down on his bed. Steve helps him out of his clothes, successively untangling him from his suspenders and pants. Bucky’s asleep almost before his head hits the pillow so Steve pulls up his blanket for him, before creeping away quietly towards his own bed on the other side of the room.

He gets under the covers, lying on his back, and stares at the ceiling.

Steve’s mind is racing. He turns his head to look at the gentle rise and fall of Bucky’s breathing, the smooth hills and valleys of his back, down to his hip and ending at the slope of his legs.

What would Dot say about what just happened? Did Steve imagine whatever it was between them, was it just a manifestation of whatever was so broken deep down inside him? Why does Steve wish he was lying beside Bucky now, his nose pressed against the nape of his neck?

Images flash in his mind of what a _good time_ with Bucky might feel like, what it might be like for Bucky to put his mouth on his-

Steve feels a throb go through his body, and he forces himself to think about something, _anything_ , else. Bucky is his best friend, the closest thing to family he has left. If it weren’t for him, Steve would have been on the streets years ago, or died from one of his bouts of pneumonia, or from the grief of losing his mother. He owes his life to the kindness of James Buchanan Barnes, to the saintly goodness of him. If Steve must martyr himself to preserve that goodness, must live with the ache inside so strong it feels like it could tear him in two, then so be it.

If Steve can do one thing to repay him, he can do this.

Steve turns to face away from the sight of Bucky, towards the damp, grimy wall of their room. He closes his eyes, and wills for sleep to come. If he’s still awake when the sun starts to rise, well, no one but God has to know.

**Author's Note:**

> write me a comment and I'll love you like rlb?


End file.
